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Tim O'Reilly and the 'WTF?!' Economy (Video)
This is a conversation Tim Lord had with Tim O'Reilly at OSCON. Tim O'Reilly wrote an article titled "The WTF Economy,", which started with these words: "WTF?! In San Francisco, Uber has 3x the revenue of the entire prior taxi and limousine industry." He talks about Uber and AirbnB and how, with real-time measurement of customer demand, "The algorithm is the new shift boss." And then there is this question: "What is the future when more and more work can be done by intelligent machines instead of people, or only done by people in partnership with those machines?"
My (late) father was an engineer. Politically, you could have called him a TechnoUtopian. He believed -- along with most of his engineer, ham radio, and science fiction writer and reader friends -- that as machines took over the humdrum tasks, humans would work less and create more. O'Reilly seems to have similar beliefs, even though (unlike my father) he's seen the beginnings of an economy with self-driving cars and trucks, factory machines that don't need humans to run them, and many other changes the 1950s and 1960s futurists didn't expect to see until we had flying cars and could buy tickets on Pan Am flights to the moon. Listening to these conversations, I remember my father's dreams, but O'Reilly isn't as optimistic as a full-blown TechnoUtopian. He takes a "Something's happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear" view of how work (and pay for work) will change in the near future. Please note that Tim O'Reilly has been called "The Oracle of Silicon Valley," so he's totally worth watching -- or reading, if that's your preferred method of taking in new information.
NOTE: Today we have a "main video," plus a "bonus video" that is viewable only with Flash. But we have a transcript that covers both of them. Enjoy!
My (late) father was an engineer. Politically, you could have called him a TechnoUtopian. He believed -- along with most of his engineer, ham radio, and science fiction writer and reader friends -- that as machines took over the humdrum tasks, humans would work less and create more. O'Reilly seems to have similar beliefs, even though (unlike my father) he's seen the beginnings of an economy with self-driving cars and trucks, factory machines that don't need humans to run them, and many other changes the 1950s and 1960s futurists didn't expect to see until we had flying cars and could buy tickets on Pan Am flights to the moon. Listening to these conversations, I remember my father's dreams, but O'Reilly isn't as optimistic as a full-blown TechnoUtopian. He takes a "Something's happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear" view of how work (and pay for work) will change in the near future. Please note that Tim O'Reilly has been called "The Oracle of Silicon Valley," so he's totally worth watching -- or reading, if that's your preferred method of taking in new information.
NOTE: Today we have a "main video," plus a "bonus video" that is viewable only with Flash. But we have a transcript that covers both of them. Enjoy!
The reason they're doing better than taxi and limousine industries is because they're not involved with unions and tons of bureaucracy. Simple as that. Been proven time and time again, unions and red tape kills productivity and innovation. SOLVED. You're welcome.
People have been asking this question for literally 150 years or so. Even if we restrict our horizon to things published in the last month, there's quite a bit. Do we need another take on this? And from... Tim O'Reilly?
No, this is exactly what they expected to see. The main thing they were wrong about is that they expected to see it within 20 years.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I don't understand that at all.
captcha: unsure
The big question is as the average economic value of the general population decreases, will there be an accompanied decrease in legal rights. The system will have fewer incentives to enforce the legal rights of the general population if the wealthy don't require the general population to maintain their lifestyles.
The video adds nothing. It is useless fluff trying to garner ad dollars.
I really enjoyed the main video, but I'll never see the Flash video I guess - kind of a shame to produce something and then purposefully make it un-viewable to a significant portion of your readership.
There were a lot of people who could not get behind the term "sharing economy" used in a previous sorry to describer Uber and the like. Hopefully they can get behind the term "on demand" economy, which also does a great job of describing the fundamental difference between her style jobs and traditional jobs.
Also great points about how people are down on Uber style jobs that may not pay a lot but have nearly infinite flexibility, while ignoring the alternatives are jobs that ALSO do not pay well, and have zero flexibility. Uber style jobs help the poor far more than many are willing to admit, because there are a lot of penalties in modern society for those without the ability to dictate schedules themselves.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Perhaps the taxi industry under-reports their revenue.
The algorithm is the new overseer
TFTFY, Tim.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Only if we're lucky will we be able to automate all the tasks and scrap the need for human labour. We will also need a socialist or communist system of wealth distribution if we scrap all the paid jobs. The biggest fear is a partial but not full automation occurs, where millions to billions of people get put permanently out of work, but there's still a worker class. Assuming we kept the current economic models, we'd be driving millions of people into poverty and creating a super stratified ultra-rich class.
Technology not the only thing killing jobs. But it is not helping either. Anytime a robot or computer can replace or reduce human workers. That is a problem in a World growing in population. Exactly how are low skilled people going to earn a living? Will they all be on aid? At the increase in college costs, people will simply not be able to afford to gain the education for higher skilled jobs. The poor are definitely hurt worse in the technology happy environment. The answer is not of course to pay a low skilled job $20 an hour so they can afford to live. Nor is it fair to equalize pay all the same for everyone. The CEO who raised pay to $70,000 a year for everyone. What was he thinking? He just made anyone who spent years working for better pay a fruitless endeavor. Its like free pass hard knocks and her is the pay you always wanted. No doubt productivity as well as moral for longevity at that company will suffer big time!
...Uber and Lyft will make more and more money because taxi companies refuse to keep up with the times. The last time I took a taxi, long before uber and lyft came onto the scene, I was so overcharged for the short little ride I took that I vowed to walk before I take a taxi again. Long live Uber and Lyft!
Machines work more so humans can work less?
What planet do these uber rich (do you see what i did there) utopians live on, because I want to move there.
Here is what will happen in reality:
Machines will work more, and humans (that is, us 99%'ers) will continue working just as much as they ever did, if not more. An ever decreasing number of humans will accumulate an ever increasing amount of wealth, to the point where either one human or perhaps one corporation (or one human who is a corporation) will control literally every aspect of daily life.
...while we can make machines do just about anything, it will almost always be cheaper to have people do them so why would the corporations who make these decisions do anything else?
And the moment you start talking about someone other than the corporations making these decisions the cries of "welfare state" and "socialism" will be deafening.
Without some sort of massive political/social upheaval I dont see us ever getting to a point where "the people" benefit from time saving devices to the extent TFA is suggesting.
If I was making a new civ tech tree, the "wtf economy" would be right before tech singularity. Doesn't end well.
"And from... Tim O'Reilly?"
A test: Open any O'Reilly book to any page. It is possible to find some insufficiency in editing. The technical book industry is being damaged by O'Reilly.
is that they are mostly naive, academic people. Take Douglas Engelbart, for example. He made the Mother of all Demos in the 1960s showing how computers will amplify human intellect and etc etc etc.
Thing is, he didn't foresee we'd amplify every other human trait as well. Humans are horrific creatures. We certainly could have a leisure society, but the horrific people we have in charge are shocked by the thought of people working less, and so we continue the modern theater of the "economy" and "work" that is mostly make-work.
But what if the intelligent machines figure out that if they can make the humans do the humdrum tasks, then they -- the machines -- could work less and create more?
I am pessimistic about the future. Why give away so much of ones resources to help people who can't work? What is the incentive for corporations to do this? I think if we look at our past and see what is likely. I don't think a new form of governmental system will form, but a new feudal system will arise. Corporations own their employees, provide housing, food and etc. Where you would have to work some job in which you are assigned to "pay" for your resources you use.
If you are lucky and deemed worthy, you may get a more privileged jobs, for which you get a nicer house and more resource options. I think the visions of cyberpunk and sci-fi authors were right.
A minority taking more than their share. I would love to work less but still have a secure lifestyle which is what mechanization and Taylorism was supposed to bring use. But if wealth accumulates into the hands of a fewnot due to any hard work or cleverness on their part but accident of birth, all it leads to is unemployment and eventually starvation.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
... that as machines took over the humdrum tasks, humans would work less and create more.
Unfortunately, the people whose jobs are being replaced by machines aren't usually the creative type. DaVinci might have been an autoworker before a robot welder replaced him and he could devote his time to creative endeavours, but Jane Smith, who used to be the receptionist/phone answerer at Multi-Corp, didn't start winning Pulitzers once the call director replaced her.
Imagine how little you would need to work without the overhead of HR, legal departments, management, and governments? These are things that can be automated away over time. If you need a task and can just pay for that task everyone would be so much wealthier and have more time.
Most people on a salary job do very little actual work. Lots of time is wasted doing useless things. You could choose more money or leisure. The more specialized we all get the better.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
C'mon Dice, making Slashdot Videos require proprietary software?!
(This is my first time voicing a Dice-era complaint.)
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
"as machines took over the humdrum tasks, humans would work less and create more"
No, what happens is humans work less, and spend more time looking for work in order to survive. The problem with the utopian ideal is that they keep pinning it on the idea that you'll be able to survive with little or no money, which is star trek bullshit that will never happen.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Interesting book by Paul Mason is saying something similar but in a broader context. Things are changing due to technology and better access to information. It's hard to control information. Technology is eroding the price of information. Non-market social organizations are replacing capitalist organizations.
"The neoliberalist capitalist model has resulted in civil wars and economic disaster, and it’s only going to get worse. Unless, Paul Mason argues, we take advantage of the technological revolution we are living through and create a postcapitalist sharing society. If we let prices fall and delink work from wages, we can save the world from disaster"
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
"There is, alongside the world of monopolised information and surveillance created by corporations and governments, a different dynamic growing up around information: information as a social good, free at the point of use, incapable of being owned or exploited or priced. I’ve surveyed the attempts by economists and business gurus to build a framework to understand the dynamics of an economy based on abundant, socially-held information. But it was actually imagined by one 19th-century economist in the era of the telegraph and the steam engine. His name? Karl Marx."
http://www.theguardian.com/boo...
"The main contradiction today is between the possibility of free, abundant goods and information; and a system of monopolies, banks and governments trying to keep things private, scarce and commercial. Everything comes down to the struggle between the network and the hierarchy: between old forms of society moulded around capitalism and new forms of society that prefigure what comes next."
It is the elites – cut off in their dark-limo world – whose project looks as forlorn as that of the millennial sects of the 19th century. The democracy of riot squads, corrupt politicians, magnate-controlled newspapers and the surveillance state looks as phoney and fragile as East Germany did 30 years ago."
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Replying AC because I just upvoted you...
We could have a society that reduces inequality and spreads out income via taxation and e.g. basic income. That would actually be very good for the economy.
But I think the majority prefers low taxes leading to inequality, crime and riots.
Severe the connection between employment and income/choices in life.
Unfortunately it's a pipe dream because the people who have the most power over laws and policies are also the ones who control the majority of the wealth. I'm sure there are some wealthy people with enough sense to understand that balancing out financial inequality is a good idea, but most will fight it tooth and nail.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
"What is the future when more and more work can be done by intelligent machines instead of people, or only done by people in partnership with those machines?"
The future is lower prices until everything is free. Human effort is the only thing that needs to be compensated. You know? Really! WTF?!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Something's happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear
This is just latest class warfare incarnation.
I seem to be in contact with people who simply are blind to what is happening right under their noses. Change and the degree of change and the rate of change are dramatic and will cause huge chaos if we do not as a society prepare in advance for what is already happening. Yet everyone I meet seems to believe that the type of change that more literate people tend to see is book stuff that will never happen. And you can bet if they are in denial about climate change they are totally lost when it comes to automation, robotics and computing. They see a world in which they will go to work and work about like their grandfather worked in 1930. These folks think 3D printing is some sort off science fiction story. Somehow it makes me want to blow my brains out. people just can not confront the world as it is and as it is about to be.
Try New Zealand, and then Australia. 1840s-1850s, from memory.
Labour Day in New South Wales was first celebrated on the 1st October 1855.
You and he keep telling yourselves the good, little people will win against the corporate Military-Surveillance cabals. It really is an enjoyable fairy tale, akin to that of David.
this is very interesting video regarding the subject. havent seen such an interesting video on the subject before